Monday, January 16, 2012

The Maurizio Cattelan exhibition at the Guggenheim was amazing, I highly recommend it to anyone who is the least bit curious, it's only open till 1-21 so get over there quick.
Theres an interesting interview with the artist in the current brooklyn rail, an excerpt appears below, you can read the entire interview here
We’re at a moment when you go out and see 20 shows and notice a trend—low key, lo-fi. You go out and you see 50 shows and you can be sure you won’t remember a single image. You remember moods. What is happening right now is everything is related to the past. I think whatever happened in the past 100 years is the main subject of today. We are in-between generations; it’s a borderline passage. It’s like if you lose your long-term boyfriend, and before you get to the new one you rebound, experiment. You never know where the new relationship comes from. But in the meantime you need to move some things around; it’s very important to see the past.

Monday, January 9, 2012

I take this as another way to say that the things we most regret are what we didn't do rather than what we did do. I've been helping out at the New Museum these last few weeks of the Carsten Holler exhibition where the centerpiece is a long tubular slide that goes from the 4th to the 2nd floor. It's a little scary but a lot of fun and I ride it at least once a day, but I get a lot of people who change their minds or are having doubts about riding it and they ask me what it's like and I think about those phrases above and try to encourage people to let go and ride it. Letting yourself go rather than being ruled by fear is definately the way to go, it's how we develop our sense of who we are.
I read an interesting article on the subject here

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

I kind of loved this movie for a lot of reasons. It started out very confusing and just got more so. It took a while but at a certain point I realized my confusion was a result of the filmaker's subtlety. I lot of very complicated, emotional information was communicated with a kind of visual shorthand, as in the scene where the character played by Benedict Cumberbatch (above), an intelligence agent , is told that from now on everything he's doing will be monitered. He immediatly goes home and kicks out his gay lover, with no explanation and much to the lover's confusion. It's heartbreakingly sad, and I was reminded that this kind of heartbreak was commonplace back in the dark ages. This kind of second class citizinship for gay people was a given and the gay guys actions here (denying himself a relationship) just reinforced society's homophobia. The guys acceptance of the fact that he couldn't have a lover was probably the result of some kind of shame he felt about himself, creating a vicious circle of repression, acceptance and shame.
This film was incredibly evocative of places and times that no longer exist. Although the Budapest of the 70's looked a lot like the Budapest I saw a few years ago. And the Istanbul of the '70s did look a lot like the Istanbul I saw in the '80's, I have a feeling that Istanbul is quite different there these days. I would love to find out soon, that was one of the coolest places I've ever been to.

About Me

Erik Hanson has been making artwork referencing ethereal experiences for over 20 years and has had 7 solo shows in New York and group shows in various venues throughout the world including The museum Boymans van Boyningen in Rotterdam, Center Cultural Rojas in Buenos Aires and MoMA/PS1 in new york city. His most meaningful job before that was as a DJ in Minneapolis' punk club "The Longhorn" from 1978 to 1981 where at one point he owned all of the punk rock records in existence, world wide.